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JOSIAH    QUINCY, 


THE    GREAT    MAYOR. 


BY 


MELLEN    CHAMBERLAIN. 


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JOSIAH    QUINCY, 


THE    GREAT    MAYOR. 


An  Address  delivered   before  the   Massachusetts   Society   for 

Promoting  Good   Citizenship,  at  the    Old   South 

Meeting-House,  Boston,  Feb,  25,  1889, 


BY 


MELLEN    CHAMBERLAIN 


BOSTON : 

Published   by  the   Society. 
1889. 


BEACON    PRESS  : 

THOMAS     TODD,      PRINTER, 

I    SOMERSET  ST.,    BOSTON. 


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Josiah  Quincy,  the  Great  Mayor. 


In  front  of  the  City  Hall  are  two  statues  in  bronze  —  one  of 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  the  other  of  Josiah  Ouincy.  The  artist 
has  represented  Franklin  in  his  old  age  and  the  culminated 
splendor  of  his  fame,  revisiting,  as  he  had  often,  expressed  a  desire 
to  do,  the  city  of  his  birth,  and  standing  in  reverential  attitude, 
with  uncovered  head,  before  the  spot  hallowed  by  memories  of  the 
old  Boston  Latin  School,  in  which  he  received  the  rudiments  of  his 
education.  No  better  site  could  have  been  chosen.  With  equal 
felicity  of  position  Josiah  Quincy,  in  the  prime  of  manhood,  stands 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  inclosure,  before  the  most  august  sym- 
bol of  the  city  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  build  up  and  adorn. 
As  works  of  art  these  statues  provoked  the  vituperative  eloquence 
O  of  Boston's  most  gifted  orator,  and  I  hear  that  they  divide  the 
^  opinions  of  experts.  However  this  may  be,  the  characters  they 
f-o  commemorate  gain  in  respect  with  the  passing  years  and  the 
spread  of  letters. 

In  some  circumstances  of  their  lives  Benjamin  Franklin  and 
Josiah  Ouincy  resembled  each  other ;  in  others,  they  were  strongly 
contrasted.  Natives  of  the  same  town,  each  represented  the  class 
from  which  he  sprung,  and  each  had  no  inconsiderable  influence  in 
shaping  the  institutions  of  Philadelphia  and  of  Boston,  in  which 
they  severally  resided.  Franklin  was  of  the  people,  without 
fortune,  or  interest,  or  social  position ;  but  by  self-culture  and 
industrious  use  of  his  powers  and  opportunities,  he  became  dis- 
tinguished at  home  and  abroad,  and  here,  if  nowhere  else,  is  known 
as  "  the  Great  Bostonian."  Josiah  Quincy,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
of  "good  family" — a  phrase  which  denoted  the  highest  distinc- 
tion of  rank  accorded  in  the  Boston  of  those  days.  His  fortune, 
"counseling   ignoble  ease  and   peaceful   sloth,"    was   ample;    but 


•c-u  r^.  c-a  A  r'  ifi 


closing  his  ears  to  the  sirens,  he  bound  himself  to  laborious  days, 
and,  having  acquired  reputation  in  national  affairs,  so  successfully- 
promoted  the  development  of  municipal  institutions  in  this  city 
that  he  is  now  best  known  as  "  the  Great  Mayor." 

The  life  of  Franklin,  often  written,  has  been  read  in  many 
lands,  and  thousands,  following  his  precepts  and  example,  have 
lived  successful  lives.  Josiah  Quincy's  life  by  his  son,  a  model  of 
literary  skill  and,  as  a  filial  biography,  unsurpassed  if  ever  equaled, 
is  less  known  than  it  ought  to  be ;  for  in  the  field  of  civic  affairs, 
everywhere  now  assuming  importance,  I  know  of  no  more  instruct- 
ive or  exemplary  life  ever  lived  in  America.  That  phase  of  it  — 
its  instructive  and  exemplary  quality  —  is  my  theme  this  evening. 

He  was  born  here  in  Boston,  on  the  easterly  side  of  Wash- 
ington Street,  a  few  doors  southerly  from  Milk  Street,  February  4, 
1772,  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1790,  admitted  to  the 
bar  in  1793,  and  married  in  1797.  In  May,  1804,  he  was  elected 
to  the  State  Senate,  and  in  October  of  the  same  year,  at  the  age 
of  thirty-three,  a  Representative  to  Congress,  where  he  sat  until 
March  4,  181 3.  Declining  further  service  in  that  body,  with  the 
exception  of  several  terms  in  the  General  Court  and  the  session 
of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1820,  he  was  in  private  life, 
giving  much  attention  to  the  cultivation  of  his  ancestral  acres  at 
Quincy,  until  his  appointment  in  1821  as  Judge  of  the  Municipal 
Court  of  Boston,  over  which  he  presided  for  two  years.  From 
May,  1823,  to  January,  1829,  he  was  Mayor  of  Boston.  Failing  of 
reelection,  he  was  chosen  President  of  Harvard  College  in  1829, 
and  held  that  office  for  sixteen  years,  residing  at  Cambridge. 
After  his  resignation  of  the  presidency  in  1845,  ^^  returned  to 
Boston,  resuming  his  summer  residence  at  Quincy,  and  there,  in 
his  house  overlooking  the  sea,  he  died,  July  i,  1864,  at  the  great 
age  of  ninety-two  years,  four  months,  and  twenty-seven  days. 

Few  of  our  public  men  have  lived  so  long  or  through  so  many 
extraordinary  events.  His  life  began  little  less  than  a  year  before 
Samuel  Adams,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  reported  the  "  Rights  of  the  Col- 
onists," in  one  of  the  most  important  State  papers  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary period  ;  and  it  ended  little  less  than  a  year  before  Lee 
surrendered  his  army  at  Appomattox  Court  House.  At  the  first 
period  the  Revolution,  which  severed  an  empire  and  made  thirteen 


5 

subject  colonies  independent  States,  had  become  inevitable ;  at  the 
second,  the  last  slave  shackle  in  Anglo-Saxon  lands  had  been 
broken,  and  the  decree  of  God  was  on  the  wing  which  reunited 
the  great  Republic  as  one,  free  and  inseparable.  What  moment- 
ous events  intervened !  The  first  shot  at  Lexington  and  the  bloody- 
carnage  at  Bunker  Hill ;  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
Cornwallis's  surrender  at  Yorktown  ;  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  in  1783, 
and  the  framing  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in 
1787;  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  including  territory  west  of 
the  Mississippi,  more  than  doubling  the  area  of  the  Republic  ; 
and  the  War  of  18 12,  which  first  aroused  the  spirit  of  nationality 
in  the  people,  and  on  the  sea  compelled  the  respect  of  the  world  ; 
the  adoption  of  an  economic  system  developing  antagonism 
between  the  manufacturing  North  and  the  cotton-growing  South, 
at  one  time  seriously  threatening  the  Union,  and  the  beginning  of 
hostility  to  slavery  which  finally  led  to  its  extinction  by  civil  war. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  Josiah  Ouincy  was  too 
young  to  have  intelligently  observed  what  was  passing  about 
Boston  between  1774  and  1776,  if,  during  these  years,  there  had 
not  been  found  a  more  safe  retreat  for  him  at  Norwich,  Connecti- 
cut ;  but  from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  nothing  of  public 
interest  escaped  his  notice. 

There  was,  however,  one  interesting  event  of  which  he  may 
have  had  a  vague  recollection.  It  was  the  "  tea  party  "  of  Decem- 
ber 16,  1773.  In  the  afternoon  of  that  day,  his  father,  standing 
here  in  the  Old  South  where  I  now  stand,  and  speaking  to  those 
who  sat  where  you  now  sit,  said  in  words  that  have  become  histori- 
cal :  "  It  is  not,  Mr.  Moderator,  the  spirit  which  vapors  within  these 
walls  that  must  stand  us  in  stead.  The  exertions  of  this  day  call 
forth  events  which  will  make  a  very  different  spirit  necessary  for 
our  salvation "  —  words  true  now,  and  as  applicable  to  affairs  in 
this  city  today  as  they  were  more  than  a  century  ago  when  they 
reechoed  from  these  walls.  In  the  evening  of  that  afternoon  the 
infantile  ears  of  his  son  must  have  heard,  though  they  heeded  not, 
the  tramp  of  men  hurrying  past  his  father's  door  to  gather  in  this 
place  ;  and  they  must  have  heard  the  war-whoop  which  came  up 
out  of  the  darkness  of  the  street  and  was  responded  to  by  shouts 
from  these  dimly  lighted  galleries.  Then  Griffin's  Wharf ;  then 
the  Boston  Port  Bill;  then  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill;  then  the 


Siege  of  Boston  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  —  events 
which  he  could  have  known  only  as  we  know  them. 

Though  Josiah  Quincy  doubtless  knew  Samuel  Adams,  it 
does  not  appear  that  he  sought  his  society.  Samuel  Adams  was 
much  the  older,  and  they  were  of  different  political  parties.  But 
with  John  Hancock,  who  married  Dorothy  Quincy,  his  father's 
cousin,  he  was  better  acquainted,  and  once  at  least  was  his  guest 
in  the  old  Hancock  House,  now  unfortunately  no  longer  stand- 
ing. Honor  to  the  man,  the  President  of  this  Society,  who, 
with  a  just  sense  of  the  value  of  patriotic  associations  to  good 
citizenship,  did  so  much  to  save  the  Old  South ! 

He  knew  Washington  also,  and  so  did  Mrs.  Quincy.  Their 
estimates  of  the  personality  of  that  great  man  were  widely  differ- 
ent, she  regarding  him  as  "  more  than  a  hero  —  a  superior  being, 
as  far  above  the  common  race  of  mankind  in  majesty  and  grace 
of  personal  bearing  as  in  moral  grandeur ; "  and  he,  forsooth, 
as  not  unlike  "  the  gentlemen  who  used  to  come  to  Boston  in  those 
days  to  attend  the  General  Court  from  Hampden  or  Franklin 
County,  in  the  western  part  of  the  State  —  a  little  stiff  in  his 
person,  not  a  little  formal  in  his  manner,  and  not  particularly  at 
ease  in  the  presence  of  strangers."  In  this  difference  of  estimate 
we  see  one  touch  of  nature  which  makes  all  married  couples  kin. 

I  have  given  you  a  mere  outline  of  Mr.  Quincy's  life.  It  was 
long,  useful,  honorable.  In  whatever  field  of  labor  he  entered  he 
soon  became  distinguished  ;  but  when,  in  May,  1823,  in  the  second 
year  of  the  city,  Josiah  Quincy  became  its  Mayor,  he  found  the 
place  suited  more  than  any  other,  I  think,  to  his  talents  and  his 
moral  qualities ;  and  in  the  six  years  that  he  served  the  city  he  did 
the  work  which  gave  him  his  highest  fame,  and  in  the  retrospect  of 
a  long  and  varied  career,  the  most  satisfaction. 

His  new  office  certainly  was  less  conspicuous  as  a  theater 
of  action  than  the  floor  of  the  House  when  filled  by  Randolph  of 
Roanoke,  Clay,  Calhoun,  Webster,  and  Macon  ;  and  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  city  government  attracted  less  attention,  if  any,  in 
Europe  or  in  this  country,  than  national  affairs  from  the  Embargo 
of  1807  to  the  Peace  of  1815.  And  when,  in  1823,  Josiah  Quincy, 
in  the  prime  of  life  and  in  the  fullness  of  his  great  powers,  reen- 
gaged in  public  affairs  as  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  small  city,  it  is 


not  unlikely  that  his  old  associates  at  Washington,  whom  he  had 
led  in  attack,  and  such  as  had  felt  the  vigor  of  his  onset,  regarded 
the  change  of  position  as  a  descent.  Even  in  this  day  of  grace 
the  mayoralty  of  a  great  city,  which  with  its  grand  possibilities  to 
all  sincere  men  might  well  seem  the  summit  of  a  career,  is  too  often 
looked  upon  as  a  stepping-stone. 

On  the  other  hand,  when,  in  1829,  he  became  president  of  the 
oldest  and  most  conspicuous  college  in  the  land,  not  unknown  in 
Europe,  it  was  doubtless  thought  that  Mr.  Quincy  at  length  had 
reached  a  position  more  worthy  of  his  great  abilities  and  of  his  rich 
and  varied  culture.  But  it  is  a  fair  question  whether,  during  the 
eight  years  he  was  in  Congress,  where,  encountering  Henry  Clay 
without  discomfiture,  he  delivered  a  series  of  speeches,  in  the 
judgment  of  Webster  the  best  of  that  period,  or  during  the  sixteen 
years  that  he  was  president  of  the  college  and  rescued  it  from 
financial  peril,  reformed  its  administration,  and  placed  it  on  a  firm 
basis,  he  did  a  work  so  peculiarly  his  own,  or  one  so  far  beyond 
the  powers  of  other  men,  or  by  which  he  desired  or  deserved  to  be 
remembered,  as  that  of  the  six  years  that  he  was  Mayor  of  Boston. 

Mr.  Quincy,  voluntarily  retiring  from  Congress  March  4,  1813, 
never  officially  reengaged  in  national  affairs,  to  the  regret  of  his 
friends  and,  as  his  son  suggests,  possibly  to  his  own  in  later  years. 
I  think  we  need  not  share  that  feeling.  Doubtless  with  oppor- 
tunity he  would  have  acquired  great  distinction,  and  possibly  be 
more  widely  known  today.  We  now  see,  however,  that  John  Quincy 
Adams  accomplished  everything  in  diplomacy,  or  in  national 
administration,  that  Mr.  Quincy  could  have  done,  nor  could  Mr. 
Webster's  senatorial  career  have  been  surpassed.  But  what  other 
American  known  to  history  could  have  equaled  Mr.  Quincy's  work 
in  municipal  affairs;  or  who  will  presume  to  determine  its  relative 
importance  to  that  of  either  of  his  great  compeers  ? 

I  have  no  desire  to  magnify  the  subject  assigned  to  me. 
Certainly  I  have  none  to  overestimate  the  relative  value  of  one 
period  of  service  to  any  other  of  Mr.  Quincy's  life,  and  still 
less  to  the  service  of  those  who,  from  John  Phillips  to  the  present 
hour,  have  filled  the  Mayor's  chair  with  honor.  Boston  has  been 
fortunate  in  the  selection  of  her  chief  magistrates  ;  but  by  any 
standard  and  by  any  comparison,  Mr.  Quincy's  work  as  Mayor  was 
a  great  work  of  enduring  value,  and  his  place  is  high  up  among 
able  and  useful  men  of  his  age  and  country. 


8 


I  think  we  may  safely  go  farther,  and  say  that  in  the  depart- 
ment of  American  municipal  affairs  no  one  of  his  countrymen  ever 
had  a  wider,  more  profound,  more  permanent,  or  more  beneficent 
influence  than  that  of  Josiah  Quincy  as  Mayor  of  Boston.  This 
was  due  in  part,  no  doubt,  to  the  fact  that  Boston  was  one  of  the 
earliest  incorporated  cities  in  the  country,  and  perhaps  the  first 
to  bring  all  departments  of  its  government  into  that  harmonious 
adjustment  which  made  it  a  pattern  for  other  cities  in  the  United 
States,  and,  in  certain  particulars,  for  some  in  Europe.  It  is 
equally  true  that  Josiah  Quincy,  like  all  men  essentially  great,  rec- 
ognized the  advantages  of  his  position  and  made  the  most  of  them ; 
and  so  far  as  he  made  Boston  what  it  was,  and  as  widely  and  per- 
manently as  it  has  influenced  the  institutions  of  other  cities,  so 
wide  and  permanent  ought  to  be  his  just  fame.  Such  was  his 
opportunity.  Then  came  his  hour;  and  I  think  he  made  it  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  municipal  government. 

Who  and  what  then  was  Josiah  Quincy ;  how  did  he  equip 
himself  for  his  work ;  for  what  do  his  life,  his  character,  and  his 
services  stand  to  us  .'' 

Here  was  a  man  in  rare  combination  of  birth,  talents,  personal 
accomplishments,  and  estate  —  the  most  enviable  man  of  his  day  in 
America.  That  was  his  good  fortune.  It  is  ours,  if  we  will  make 
it  so,  that  there  was  nothing  in  any  or  in  all  of  the  essential 
circumstances  of  his  life,  or  his  character,  or  conduct,  which  we 
cannot  imitate,  adopt,  and  follow.  And  it  is  just  this  imitable  and 
exemplary  quality  which  makes  him,  on  the  whole,  the  best  model 
hitherto  appearing  in  our  American  life  upon  which  to  form  our- 
selves. The  consummate  genius  of  Henry  Clay,  who  first  aroused 
the  spirit  of  nationality  in  the  people,  or  of  Webster,  who  molded 
the  Constitution  to  it,  or  of  Lincoln,  who  called  a  million  of 
armed  men  to  its  defense,  so  far  transcends  the  limits  of  ordinary 
rational  aspiration  as  to  make  imitation  ridiculous.  Had  Mr. 
Quincy  belonged  to  that  class  of  men,  in  despair  we  might 
turn  off  the  lights,  and,  in  the  seclusion  of  our  homes,  giving 
rein  to  imagination,  vainly  identify  ourselves  with  those  rare 
spirits  who  have  appeared  to  dazzle,  to  delight,  and  to  elude 
us !  Happily  for  us,  in  what  he  did  for  good  government,  or  in 
what  his  example  may  inspire  us  to  do  for  good  government,  he 


was  of  a  different  order,  though  I  think  we  shall  quite  as  soon 
see  another  Henry  Clay,  or  Daniel  Webster,  or  possibly  Abraham 
Lincoln,  as  another  Josiah  Quincy.  Each  in  some  particulars 
surpassed  him.  But  in  the  genius  of  character  —  in  the  com- 
bination of  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  —  he  has  had  no  su- 
perior in  our  American  life.  And  it  is  character  which  finally 
prevails  ;  which  molds  institutions  and  forms  a  people  for  great- 
ness ;  which  gathers  to  itself  and  expresses  what  is  best  and 
most  permanent  in  race  qualities.  It  is  the  dominating  and  per- 
manent influence  on  society.  The  stream  finds  its  path,  not  by 
the  lights  which  glitter  along  its  course,  nor  by  sun,  moon  or 
stars  above,  but  by  its  headlands  and  firm-set  shores.  Our  Puri- 
tans prevailed,  not  because  of  the  intellectual  greatness  of  one, 
but  because  many  were  great  in  character ;  and  so  it  must  ever 
be.  Great  as  were  Mr.  Quincy's  abilities,  his  preeminence  was  in 
character.  And  it  is  this  which  draws  us  to  the  Old  South  tonight; 
not  to  search  his  life  for  entertaining  anecdotes  —  of  which  there 
are  many — or  points  effective  in  biographical  description.  With 
set  purpose  I  shall  pass  over  everything,  however  attractive, 
which  is  not  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  or 
for  instruction  in  the  righteousness  of  citizenship.  I  wish  to 
discern  in  his  life  and  character  and  services,  if  I  may,  whatever 
will  instruct  and  inspire  us  to  the  formation  of  like  character, 
to  undertake  similar  services  so  far  as  our  circumstances  allow, 
and  to  act  with  the  same  fidelity  to  duty.  Failing  in  this,  I  fail 
utterly. 

Mr.  Quincy  did  not,  like  Franklin,  raise  himself  from  poverty  to 
affluence  and  power  ;  but  he  was  exposed  to  perils  which  Franklin 
escaped  —  perils  which  most  of  us  escape  ;  perils  of  social  position 
as  the  only  son  of  an  eminent  revolutionary  patriot  enrolled  by 
great  services  and  early  death  among  the  martyrs ;  of  his  singu- 
larly attractive  personality — a  fatal  gift  to  one  of  less  austere  self- 
control  ;  of  his  fortune,  permitting  a  life  of  elegant  leisure  elevated 
by  no  sincere  purpose ;  of  a  hereditary  domain  crowned  by  a 
historic  mansion  hospitable  to  illustrious  visitors  from  other  lands, 
as  well  as  his  own,  including  three  Presidents  of  the  United 
States  —  a  social  distinction  satisfying  to  a  moral  sense  less 
robust,  less  exacting  than  his  own.  How  many  have  been  wrecked 
by  perils  which  Josiah  Quincy  avoided  ;   how  few  have  acknowl- 


10 


edged  the  obligations  he  assumed ;  how  many  have  laid  down  the 
burdens  he  carried  nearly  a  hundred  years ;  how  many,  withhold- 
ing, or  in  disgust  withdrawing,  themselves  from  public  affairs  for 
which  they  are  eminently  fitted,  by  education,  fortune  and  social 
position,  have  yielded  to  the  seductions  of  pleasures,  not  always 
innocent,  and  lived  their  lives,  and  exhausted  their  gifts,  with  no 
results  of  value  to  themselves  or  to  others ! 

Franklin  and  Quincy  were  both  great  men ;  and  it  is  not  their 
least  —  perhaps  it  is  their  highest  —  claim  to  grateful  remembrance 
that  each,  pushing  aside  the  obstacles  and  escaping  the  perils 
which  beset  him,  made  the  most  of  his  powers  and  opportunities. 
Higher  honor  no  man  ever  gained  than  this ;  than  this  of  no  man 
God  requires  more.  Seldom  has  the  same  town  produced  two 
such  men,  each  recognized  as  the  best  type  of  some  characteristic 
trait  of  its  people — Franklin  of  their  thrift,  the  result  of  right 
conduct ;  Josiah  Quincy  of  their  fitness  for  citizenship,  which  for 
two  hundred  years,  in  peace  and  in  war,  had  made  Boston  a  most 
conspicuous  and  influential  municipality;  himself  to  become  more 
widely  known  as  the  rights  and  duties  of  citizenship  are  accorded 
their  just  place  in  the  education  and  life  of  the  people,  as  they 
must  inevitably  be  with  the  development  of  republican  govern- 
ment. 

Mr.  Quincy's  talents  were  great,  so  great  that  more  safely 
than  most  men  he  could  have  dispensed  with  laborious  preparation 
for  his  public  work;  but,  save  John  Adams  and  his  son,  John 
Quincy,  I  know  no  one  of  our  countrymen  who  so  assiduously 
prepared  for  it.  From  early  manhood  he  fitted  himself  for  citizen- 
ship with  very  clear  notions  of  its  value  and  just  demands;  and 
he  cultivated  his  powers  by  an  exhaustive  study  of  every  question 
likely  to  engage  them. 

Although  completely  equipped  for  office,  Josiah  Quincy,  so 
far  as  I  can  discover,  never  sought  it ;  nor,  what  is  quite  as  much 
to  his  credit  considering  his  easy  fortune,  did  he  ever  refuse  it. 
I  think  we  may  safely  say  that  he  never  accepted  office  for  its 
honors  or  its  emoluments,  nor  declined  it  to  escape  its  labors, 
its  responsibilities,  or  even  its  obloquy.  When  he  accepted  the 
mayoralty  it  was  not  that  he  might  make  himself  famous,  but,  as 
he  hoped,  that  he  might  make  the  city  eminent  for  good  order, 


II 


for  honest   government,   and   for  the   prosperity   of  its  people  — 

make  it 

"  Athens  the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts 

And  eloquence,  native  to  famous  wits 

Or  hospitable  ; " 

nor  did  it  change  his  determination  or  his  conduct  by  a  hair's 
breadth  when  he  foresaw,  as  he  did  from  the  beginning,  that  after 
such  services  the  people  would  reject  him. 

I  am  now  to  give  some  account  of  the  services  which  enroll 
Josiah  Quincy  as  "  the  Great  Mayor  "  among  chief  magistrates  of 
the  city.  He  succeeded  John  PhilHps  in  May,  1823,  and  held  the 
office  six  years.  As  the  history  of  his  administration  is  in  some 
sort  a  "  Tract  for  the  Times,"  I  desire  to  preface  it  by  recalling  to 
your  recollection  the  state  of  municipal  affairs  in  Boston  in  1821, 
at  the  time  the  people  were  discussing  their  fundamental  govern- 
ment —  whether  it  should  remain,  as  for  two  hundred  years  it  had 
been,  essentially  democratic,  or  be  changed  more  completely  to  a 
representative  government.  An  interesting  question  not  only  in 
Boston  but  elsewhere ;  for  about  the  time  when  Mr.  Quincy  was 
giving  attention  to  the  subject,  Guizot,  who  had  been  of  the  min- 
istry of  Louis  XVIII,  in  which  he  took  an  active  part  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  representative  government  in  France,  was  preparing  a 
course  of  lectures,  afterwards  expanded  and  published,  in  1852, 
as  "The  History  of  the  Origin  of  Representative  Government  in 
Europe."  Guizot  believed  in  representative  government,  and  yet 
when  he  published  that  work  he  had  witnessed  the  bad  fortune  of 
the  experiment  in  France  in  1820,  the  severer  test  of  it  in  1830, 
and  its  disastrous  failure  when  Louis  Napoleon  seized  the  govern- 
ment in  185 1.  Nevertheless  his  faith  endured,  and  in  the  wreck 
of  hopes  and  reasonable  expectations,  with  sublime  serenity,  he 
said  that  "among  the  infinite  illusions  of  human  vanity  we  must 
number  those  of  misfortune  ;  whether  as  peoples  or  individuals,  in 
public  or  in  private  life,  we  delight  to  persuade  ourselves  that  our 
trials  are  unprecedented,  and  that  we  have  to  endure  evils  and 
surmount  obstacles  previously  unheard  of.  How  deceitful  is  this 
consolation  of  pride  in  suffering  !  God  has  made  the  condition  of 
men,  of  all  men,  more  severe  than  they  are  willing  to  believe ;  and 
he  causes  them  at  all  times  to  purchase  at  a  dearer  price  than  they 
had  anticipated  the   success  of  their  labors  and  the  progress  of 


12 


their  destiny.  Let  us  accept  this  stern  law  without  a  murmur; 
let  us  courageously  pay  the  price  which  God  puts  upon  success,- 
instead  of  basely  renouncing  success  itself." 

It  hightens  our  respect  for  Mr.  Quincy  that,  though  he  was 
opposed  to  a  city  charter  and  resisted  it  by  speech  and  pen  as  long 
as  there  was  any  chance  of  defeating  it,  yet,  when  adopted,  with 
sincerity  and  untiring  labor  he  devoted  his  powers  and  his  time  to 
make  it  successful. 

Like  some  other  able  men  of  his  day,  he  believed  the  pure 
democracy  of  the  town  meeting  more  suited  to  the  character  of 
the  people  of  New  England  and  less  liable  to  corruption  and  abuse 
than  a  more  compact  government,  which,  with  all  its  checks  and 
balances,  checks  after  the  collision  and  balances  after  the  load  is 
overturned  quite  as  often  as  before  —  a  system  which  breeds  con- 
fidential clerks  and  swells  the  population  of  Montreal  —  a  sort  of 
"  Waterbury  watch  "  affair,  out  of  which  you  get  no  more  time  than 
you  put  into  it ! 

After  nearly  seventy  years  of  representative  city  government 
it  is  premature  to  say  what  form  it  will  ultimately  take ;  whether  it 
will  return  to  the  old  democratic  simplicity,  if  some  practicable 
scheme  can  be  devised,  or  still  further  simplify  representation  by 
abolishing  all  intermediaries,  such  as  the  Board  of  Aldermen  and 
Common  Council,  and,  intrusting  everything  to  the  Mayor,  with 
such  heads  of  departments  as  he  may  choose,  hold  him  responsible 
for  good  government.  This  has  one  advantage  of  a  monarchy. 
If  the  people  dislike  the  monarch  they  can  decapitate  him,  as  they 
often  have  done ;  with  representative  bodies  this  is  not  quite  so 
convenient,  though  often  quite  as  desirable  and  necessary  ! 

It  took  six  thousand  years  to  ascertain  whether,  by  just  law, 
the  sun  should  revolve  around  the  earth  as  a  center,  or  the  earth 
around  the  sun.  Copernicus  settled  that  question  ;  and  we  await 
the  advent  of  an  equal  genius  to  adjust  the  revolution  of  political 
bodies  agreeably  to  the  divine  order.  In  the  meantime  we  must  wait, 
but  not  idly.  As  we  ourselves  have  to  do,  so  did  Mr.  Quincy  take 
things  as  he  found  them  —  not  altogether  as  he  would  have  chosen. 
When  he  came  to  the  government  he  found  matters  much  as  they  are 
now.  Then  there  were  proportionally  as  many  who  pleaded,  as  we 
do,  in  excuse  for  declining  participation  in  public  affairs,  "  that  their 
opinions,  tastes,  and  what  seemed  to  them  right  modes  of  action, 
were  so  different  from  those  of  a  large  part  of  the  people  and  so 


13 

unlikely  to  result  in  success  that  it  was  hardly  worth  while  to 
waste  their  energies  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  secure  good  govern- 
ment ;  that  matters  were  in  a  bad  way  doubtless,  but  that  they 
could  better  bear  the  ills  of  bad  government  than  afford  the  time 
required  for  their  correction  ;  that  a  few  right-minded  people  were 
of  small  account  among  so  many  wrong-minded,  and  at  worst  that 
they  were  as  well  off  as  others."  Mr.  Ouincy  had  quite  as  good 
reason  as  we  have  for  impatience,  discouragement,  and  disgust 
with  popular  ignorance,  unreasonableness,  and  caprice,  with  the 
greed  of  the  selfish  and  the  indifference  of  well-to-do  people. 

The  change  from  the  old  town  government  to  a  city  govern- 
ment, requiring  a  surrender  of  methods  dear  to  the  people  by 
immemorial  usage  and  the  adoption  of  new  methods  necessarily 
abridging  many  of  their  former  liberties,  caused  discontent,  which 
increased  rather  than  diminished  after  their  first  year's  experience 
of  the  new  system.  For  two  hundred  years  the  town  government 
had  performed  its  functions,  upon  the  whole,  with  results  satisfac- 
tory to  the  people.  It  was  their  own — to  them  a  great  merit ;  for 
in  it  they  made  their  power  felt  without  much  dilution  by  passing 
through  a  representative  medium.  It  was  economical  —  another 
merit ;  for  the  people  were  economical.  They  treated  the  unfort- 
unate and  vicious  classes  with  slight  regard  to  health,  comfort,  or 
their  possible  restoration  to  better  conditions.  Streets  were  nar- 
row, ill  paved,  unswept,  and  drainage  disgracefully  inadequate  ;  but 
wide  streets,  well  paved,  well  lighted,  and  well  drained  were  costly 
luxuries,  to  be  had  only  by  taxation.  They  had  rebelled  against 
British  taxation,  and  quarreled  with  the  domestic  article.  They  dis- 
liked the  thing,  by  whatever  name.  Consequently  their  legislation 
was  from  hand  to  mouth,  with  little  regard  to  system,  or  prevision 
of  remote  consequences,  good  or  bad. 

This  was  a  serious  embarrassment  to  Mr.  Quincy,  whose  broad 
and  forecasting  mind  projected  measures  requiring  time  for  their 
perfection  and  for  yielding  their  best  results.  Of  course  the  people 
were  not  unaware  of  the  impracticability  of  7,000  voters  assembling 
in  one  place,  usually  Faneuil  Hall,  to  choose  town  officers,  levy 
taxes,  and  determine  with  due  deliberation  the  various  and  com- 
plicated legislative  and  executive  affairs  for  a  population  of  40,000 ; 
and,  as  we  shall  see,  they  had  delegated  some  of  their  more 
important  functions  to  executive  boards.     Nevertheless,  five  times 


14 

between  1784  and  1821  they  had  refused  a  charter,  and  finally 
accepted  it  only  by  a  majority  of  1,500  of  the  5,000  voters  who 
took  the  trouble  to  express  their  wishes  at  the  polls. 

The  government  had  changed,  but  the  people  remained  the 
same.  Old  habits  were  strong.  They  missed  their  March  meet- 
ing —  a  sort  of  festival  day  on  which  they  had  assembled  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  chosen  town  officers,  and  done  their  town  business,  as  had 
their  fathers  for  two  hundred  years,  and  outside  exchanged  friendly 
greetings  and  the  news,  and  now  and  then  made  sharp  bargains. 
For  the  young  were  frolic  and  sport  and  gingerbread  and  fire-crack- 
ers, dear  to  boys.  How  different  from  all  this  were  cold,  isolated 
ward  rooms,  with  no  debates  and  no  James  Otis,  or  Samuel 
Adams,  or  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  the  most  brilliant  of  orators  until 
Wendell  Phillips  arose  in  Faneuil  Hall  to  electrify  the  peninsula 
and  recall  the  austere  virtues  of  the  Puritans. 

Nor  was  sentimental  attachment  wanting.  The  town  meeting 
had  endeared  itself  to  the  people  in  affording  opportunities  for 
resisting  every  form  of  royal  predominance,  civil  or  ecclesiastical, 
which  interfered  with  their  rights,  real  or  imaginary,  and  by  its 
agency  in  bringing  on  and  carrying  forward  the  Revolution. 
Some  of  the  older  men  had  seen  how  effectively,  how  wisely, 
Samuel  Adams  had  handled  it,  and  generally,  though  not  always, 
how  unselfishly.  It  had  been  the  palladium  of  their  liberties,  and 
they  were  sorry  to  give  it  up. 

Now  these  principles,  reasons,  and  prejudices,  although  shared 
by  Josiah  Quincy,  were  a  serious  hindrance  to  his  government, 
into  which  they  were  carried  by  the  people,  and  made  themselves 
more  and  more  manifest  as  the  stringency  of  new  rules  interfered 
with  old  customs  and  interests.  There  was  laudation  of  old  ways, 
and  much  carping  at  the  new,  chiefly  because  they  were  new. 

From  a  very  early  day  many  legislative  and  executive  powers 
of  the  town  government  had  been  given  over  to  Selectmen,  Over- 
seers of  the  Poor,  Board  of  Health,  Firewards,  and  Assessors  ;  and 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  first  three  of  these  boards  constituted  a 
Finance  Committee,  which  determined  appropriations,  assessment 
of  taxes,  and  expenditures.  Although  they  owed  their  election, 
and  nominally  their  powers,  to  the  people,  practically  they  were 
self-perpetuixting  oligarchies,  which  claimed  to  carry  their  functions 
into  the  new  city  government  in  1822,  and  were  only  suppressed  by 


15 

the  tact  and  persistence  of  Mr.  Ouincy  in  asserting  the  just  author- 
ity of  the  new  government  under  the  charter. 

When  Mr.  Quincy  became  Mayor  the  new  government  had 
been  running  a  year.  The  first  Mayor,  an  able  and  worthy  gentle- 
man, does  not  appear  to  have  given  much  attention  to  municipal 
affairs  ;  and  other  public  burdens,  with  failing  health,  prevented 
his  grappling  with  troublesome  questions.  He  left  them  with  Mr. 
Quincy.  The  charter,  as  drafted  by  the  late  Chief  Justice  Shaw, 
was  a  model.  But  paper  government  was  one  thing,  and  a  work- 
ing government  was  quite  another  thing  —  a  machine  needing 
adjustment.  This  was  no  easy  matter.  An  indolent,  easy-going 
Mayor,  to  whom  conscience  was  of  less  account  than  comfort, 
caring  less  to  have  matters  run  correctly  than  smoothly,  and  more 
solicitous  respecting  his  reelection  than  for  the  public  interests, 
would  have  got  on  with  a  tithe  of  the  trouble  which  Mr.  Quincy 
took  to  himself. 

In  everything  relating  to  the  construction  or  working  of  the 
charter,  and  to  the  management  of  city  affairs,  he  had  a  way  of  his 
own.  He  studied  subjects  until  he  knew  them  better  than  any 
other  man.  Of  this,  I  dare  say,  he  was  conscious,  and  perhaps  he 
was  opinionated.  Nevertheless,  he  was  a  just  man,  judicially  just, 
determined,  inflexible,  steadfast.  Nothing  escaped  his  eye,  and  in 
labor  he  was  untiring. 

Here  was  the  right  man  for  the  place,  yet  very  much  in  the 
way  —  in  the  way  of  all  wrong-headed  people  ;  of  those  whose 
private  interests  conflicted  with  the  public  interests  ;  of  all  who 
had  jobs;  of  all  who  wished  to  be  left  alone  in  pursuit  of  their 
selfish  courses  or  passions,  regardless  of  the  general  weal. 

In  giving  an  account  of  the  new  Mayor's  work  I  cannot  go 
very  fully  into  details ;  but  in  general  terms,  and  with  due  regard 
to  facts,  I  think  I  may  say  that  there  was  no  one  of  our  public 
institutions,  nor  anything  in  the  mode  of  conducting  them,  which 
gave  rank  to  Boston  among  cities  quite  out  of  proportion  to  its 
territory  or  population,  and  made  it  a  model  for  other  cities,  which 
either  did  not  originate  in  the  inventive  mind  of  Josiah  Quincy,  or 
owe  to  his  shaping  hand  completer  development  and  more  benefi- 
cent action.  His  work  covered  public  morals,  health,  education, 
convenience,  and  comfort;  streets,  sewers,  and  water;  penal, 
reformatory,    and    industrial    institutions;    markets,    police,    fire 


i6 


department,  and  an  incipient  public  garden.  With  efificient  coad- 
jutors and,  in  a  general  sense,  the  public  support,  yet  he  was  the 
greatest  factor  in  every  work.  He  inspired,  he  led.  Before  his 
time  mayors  were  often  merely  presiding  officers  —  ornamental 
figure-heads.  Executive  powers  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
boards.  Lack  of  unity  and  efficiency  followed.  Mr.  Quincy  deter- 
mined to  be  Mayor.  Therefore  he  gathered  up  all  the  powers 
which  the  charter,  in  express  terms  or  by  fair  construction,  gave 
him,  and  he  used  them  with  results  before  unknown ;  not  to 
engross  power,  but,  as  he  said,  "to  produce  and  fix  in  the  minds 
of  all  influential  classes  of  citizens  a  strong  conviction  of  the 
advantages  of  having  an  active  and  willingly  responsible  executive, 
by  an  actual  experience  of  the  benefits  of  such  an  administration 
of  their  affairs  ;  and  also  of  their  right  and  duty  of  holding  the 
Mayor  responsible  in  character  and  office  for  the  state  of  the  police 
and  finances  of  the  city." 

Such  were  Mr.  Quincy's  views  respecting  good  government. 
To  bring  it  about  taxed  his  powers  to  the  utmost.  He  succeeded, 
and  his  success  was  the  best  solution  of  the  problem  of  city 
government  hitherto  presented.  The  sequel  is  worth  noting. 
After  he  left  the  mayoralty,  in  1829,  there  set  in  a  departure  from 
his  views,  which  finally  became  wide.  Old  jealousies  between  the 
different  departments  of  government  revived.  The  legislative 
branch  claimed  a  share  in  the  powers  of  the  executive  depart- 
ment, and  both  in  those  of  the  Mayor.  The  General  Court 
yielded  to  the  clamor  for  popular  rights;  and  after  a  time  we  came 
to  have  a  government  which,  lacking  unity  of  power  and  conse- 
quent responsibility,  did  not  govern.  Matters  finally  came  to  such 
a  pass  that,  in  1885,  the  Legislature  again  intervened  and  remod- 
eled the  charter  so  as  to  act  more  nearly  in  the  spirit  in  which  Mr. 
Quincy  administered  it  sixty  years  before. 

When  Mr.  Quincy  had  established  the  government  on  a  good 
basis,  he  instituted  a  series  of  reforms,  more  than  a  score  in  num- 
ber, which  gave  to  Boston  a  high  rank  among  municipalities,  and 
made  it  in  many  respects  a  model  city ;  a  model  of  institutions  for 
the  criminal,  the  improvident,  and  the  unfortunate ;  of  well-paved, 
clean-kept,  and  well-lighted  streets  ;  of  sewerage  and  systematic 
removal  of   public  and  private  offal ;    of  administrative  measures 


17 

concerning  public  health,  education,  police,  and  markets ;  of  the 
preservation  of  natural  scenery,  such  as  the  islands  in  the  harbor, 
and  for  the  inauguration  of  a  park  system,  now  unfolding  itself  with 
promise  to  public  health  and  morals  and  the  sense  of  beauty. 

Without  order  of  time,  and  grouping  some  related  measures, 
I  now  specify  a  few  of  Mr.  Quincy's  services.  If  today,  or  at  any 
time  before  toda}^  Boston  has  or  has  had  the  reputation  of  being 
one  of  the  cleanest  and  most  healthy  of  large  cities,  it  is  due  mainly 
to  Josiah  Quincy.  He  took  the  matter  in  hand  soon  after  his 
inauguration  —  and  there  was  need.  Conflicting  boards  claimed 
sole  authority  to  clean  the  streets  and  remove  offal.  Consequently 
the  work  was  not  well  done.  The  powers  inefficiently  exercised 
by  these  boards  were  transferred  by  legislative  authority  and 
municipal  consent  to  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  who  got  to  work 
with  such  effect  that  "  for  the  first  time,  on  any  scale  destined  for 
universal  application,  the  broom  was  used  upon  the  streets  ;  every 
street,  alley,  court,  and  household  yard,  however  distant  and  how- 
ever obscure,  was  thoroughly  cleansed."  The  death  rate  was 
lessened  and  the  comfort  of  the  people  increased. 

With  like  vigor,  and  with  similar  discouragements,  Mr. 
Quincy  overhauled  criminal  and  pauper  institutions.  There  was 
an  almshouse  in  the  heart  of  the  city.  Its  inmates,  allowed  to 
wander  through  the  streets,  some  intoxicated,  some  begging,  had 
become  a  public  nuisance.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  their  care 
had  been  intrusted  to  the  Overseers  of  the  Poor,  excellent  gentle- 
men, with  old-time  notions  of  their  powers  as  well  as  of  the 
management  of  paupers.  With  this  board  he  had  a  contest.  He 
won  ;  and,  as  a  result,  there  were  set  up  on  spacious  grounds  at 
South  Boston,  amidst  healthful  influences,  a  House  of  Correction, 
a  House  of  Industry,  and  a  House  for  the  Reformation  of  Juvenile 
Offenders.  This  change,  salutary  to  their  inmates,  promoted  the 
security  and  comfort  of  dwellers  in  the  city  proper.  Several  of 
these  institutions  have  since  been  removed  to  Deer  Island,  and 
that  for  the  Reformation  of  Juvenile  Offenders,  which  originated 
with  Mr.  Quincy,  attracted  the  attention  of  De  Tocqueville,  sent 
by  the  French  government  in  1832  to  inquire  into  the  penitentiary 
system  of  the  United  States. 

Before  Mr.  Quincy's  time  some  of  the  leading  religious  socie- 
ties had  derived  considerable  revenue  from  the  sale  of  burial  rights 


1 8 


in  tombs  beneath  their  church  edifices.  Respectable  medical  prac- 
titioners said  there  was  no  harm  in  this ;  but  Mr,  Quincy  effect- 
ually opposed  its  continuance  on  the  score  of  public  health,  and 
this  led  to  the  establishment  of  extra-mural  cemeteries,  now  so 
common,  of  which  Mt.  Auburn  was  the  first. 

Public  morals,  no  less  than  public  health,  engaged  his  atten- 
tion. There  was  a  district  of  the  city,  now  quite  respectable,  then 
congested  with  jail-birds,  thieves,  miscreants,  and  the  most  aban- 
doned of  both  sexes,  who  haunted  houses  of  ill-fame,  and,  issuing 
therefrom,  committed  all  sorts  of  crimes,  including  murder,  and  in 
their  Boston  Alsatia  defied  the  police.  Mr.  Quincy  took  them  in 
hand,  and  shortly  the  worst  offenders  were  in  the  House  of  Correc- 
tion at  South  Boston.  The  district  was  restored  to  good  order 
and  respectability,  and  the  city  became  more  secure. 

Mr.  Ouincy's  work  appears  at  its  best  only  in  the  fullest 
details,  though  time  does  not  allow  their  recital.  Nothing  within 
municipal  authority  escaped  his  attention  ;  there  was  no  depart- 
ment which,  after  his  six  years  of  service,  did  not  show  the  effect 
of  masterly  organization  and  administration.  There  are  two  sub- 
jects, however,  which  even  in  a  cursory  survey  of  Mr.  Quincy's 
labors  ought  not  to  be  overlooked. 

Every  one  knows,  generally  at  least,  that  Boston  owes  to 
Josiah  Quincy  what  is  now  best  known  as  Quincy  Market ;  but 
unless  he  has  studied  the  subject,  no  one  knows  the  change 
effected  in  that  section  of  the  city,  or  the  labor  by  which  private 
interests  were  satisfied  and  the  people  induced  to  engage  in  a 
work  so  expensive,  which  yet  resulted  in  the  erection  of  "  a  granite 
market  house,  two  stories  high,  four  hundred  and  thirty-five  feet 
long,  fifty  feet  wide,  and  covering  27,000  feet  of  land,  includ- 
ing every  essential  accommodation,  at  the  cost  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  Six  new  streets  were  opened 
and  a  seventh  greatly  enlarged,  including  167,000  square  feet  of 
land,  and  flats,  docks,  and  wharf  rights  were  obtained  of  the  extent 
of  142,000  square  feet;  and  all  this  was  accomplished  in  the  center 
of  a  populous  city,  not  only  without  tax,  debt,  or  burdens  upon  its 
pecuniary  resources,  notwithstanding  in  the  course  of  its  opera- 
tions funds  to  the  amount  of  upwards  of  ^1,100,000  had  been 
employed,  but  with  large  permanent  addition  to  its  real  and  pro- 
ductive property." 


19 

It  is  perhaps  less  well  known  that  Mr.  Quincy  extinguished 
private  rights  to  lands  at  the  foot  of  the  Common,  since  become  part 
of  the  Public  Garden,  which  secured  what  was  then  one  of  the  most 
repulsive,  now  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  spots  in  the  world,  and 
made  practicable  the  policy  of  the  State  in  laying  out  and  filling 
up  the  Back  Bay  and  opening  public  squares,  for  which  the  people 
were  not  then  prepared. 

It  has  been  often  said  by  some  who  were  citizens  of  Boston 
during  Mr.  Quincy's  administration,  that  the  trait  of  his  character 
which  most  strongly  impressed  them,  as  exhibited  on  many  occa- 
sions, was  courage,  and  that  he  might  well  be  best  remembered 
still  as  "  the  Fearless  Magistrate."  There  was  one  occasion  on 
which  he  gave  an  example  of  moral  courage  which  even  in  this 
sketch  ought  not  to  be  passed  over.  It  was  in  respect  to  the  fire 
department.  This  organization  held  an  important  relation  to  the 
property  and  the  lives  of  the  people.  Numbering  twelve  hundred 
young  men,  bound  together  by  common  associations  and  common 
dangers,  impatient  of  new  ways  and  jealous  of  any  infringement  on 
their  customary  privileges,  they  were  a  power  at  the  polls  quite  out 
of  proportion  to  their  numbers  —  a  power  which  they  were  not  slow 
to  exert  on  occasion.  Mr.  Quincy's  efforts  in  reducing  the  depart- 
ment to  stricter  discipline,  and  even  more,  his  insistence  upon  the 
use  of  hose  instead  of  buckets,  and  cisterns  instead  of  pumps,  and 
his  bringing  from  Philadelphia  and  New  York  new  and  improved 
fire  engines,  had  caused  ill  feeling  which  showed  itself  in  insubor- 
dination and  acts  of  violence.  This  state  of  things  prepared  the 
way  for  an  outbreak  in  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Quincy's  administration 
on  the  appointment  of  a  chief  engineer  not  to  the  firemen's  liking. 
Mr.  Quincy's  resoluteness  in  meeting  this  exigency,  and  the  prompt- 
itude and  efficiency  with  which  he  filled  the  places  of  those  who 
expected  to  force  the  Mayor's  position  by  tendering  their  resigna- 
tion, showed  the  people  how  fearlessly  he  could  discharge  his  duty 
even  at  the  cost  of  his  reelection,  as  he  foresaw  might  be  and  was 
the  case. 

In  estimating  "  the  Great  Mayor,"  it  is  not  enough  to  look 
merely  at  the  amount  and  variety  of  his  services.  Though  his 
intellect  was  of  a  high  order,  his  influence  was  largely  in  character, 


20 


devotion  to  his  work,  untiring  industry,  sincerity,  decision  of  man- 
ner tempered  by  exactest  courtesy,  cordiality,  helpfulness,  physical 
and  moral  intrepidity.  Some  of  us  saw  him  in  his  old  age,  the 
most  venerable  figure  in  our  streets  ;  others,  at  the  college  before 
time  had  bowed  his  form  ;  but  the  memory  of  few  now  present 
reaches  back  to  the  days  when,  in  the  prime  of  his  long  life  —  with 
his  high-bred  face  no  more  noticeable  man  in  America*  —  often 
before  the  sun  was  up,  he  rode  his  daily  round  of  inspecting  the 
city ;  or  when,  in  a  riot,  he  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  truck- 
men, hastily  extemporized  as  an  auxiliary  police  force,  and  moved 
down  upon  the  mob.  In  every  relation  of  life,  public  or  private, 
his  character,  bearing,  and  personality  gave  assurance  of  a  man. 
Such  qualities  impressed  institutions  as  well  as  society. 

To  found  a  city,  or  to  establish  institutions  and  indelibly 
stamp  them  by  character  and  services,  has  ever  been  held  a  great 
achievement.  When  Themistocles,  the  Athenian,  would  boast,  he 
said  that  he  "could  make  a  small  town  a  great  city."  Mr.  Quincy 
never  boasted,  though  he  was  not  unconscious  of  his  great  powers, 
nor  that  he  had  wrought  into  the  fabric  and  texture  of  the  city 
what  would  survive  the  fashions  of  municipal  government.  Since 
his  time  changes  have  taken  place,  and  others  will  doubtless 
follow ;  but  neither  the  work  nor  the  fame  of  Josiah  Quincy 
can  ever  perish.  They  are  on  the  rock.  His  mayoralty  was 
great  in  economic  and  material  results — promoted  cleanliness, 
order,  comfort ;  but  was  even  greater,  I  think,  in  its  successful 
endeavor  after  public  virtue,  purity,  and  social  right. 

In  the  lowest  and  least  complete  estimate  of  his  services  Mr, 
Quincy  earned  the  respect  of  his  constituents  and  the  benediction 
of  later  generations;  but  the  former  rejected  him  and  we  are  in 
danger  of  forgetting  him.  This  ought  not  so  to  be,  more  for  our  own 
sake  than  for  his.      After  he  had  filled  the  office  of  Mayor  for  six 


*The  likeness  facing  tlie  title-page  is  from  a  portrait  painted  by  Stuart  when  Mr. 
Quincy  was  Mayor,  and  is  one  of  the  four  of  him  in  oil  which  remain.  But  in  none  of 
them  can  we  see  him  as  he  appeared  on  taking  his  degree,  in  peach-colored  coat, 
white  satin  small-clothes  with  silk  stockings,  and  powdered  hair;  nor  in  the  splendid 
uniform  of  the  "Huzzars."  Page  painted  him  in  his  robes  as  President  of  the 
University,  and  Story  made  a  model  of  a  statue  which,  though  regarded  as  one  of  his 
best  works,  has  never  been  put  into  marble.  There  are  also  portrait  busts  of  him  by 
Greenough  and  Crawford. 


21 


years  with  assiduity  and  success  unparalleled,  the  people,  in  spite 
of  these  services  and  partly  because  of  them,  refused  to  reelect  him. 

What  then  ?  Did  all  his  great  services  go  for  nothing  ?  Was 
self-respect  clouded  or  honor  lost  ?  The  citadel  of  self-respect  is 
unassailable  from  without,  nor  is  honor  the  gift  of  the  people. 
They  can  neither  bestow  it  nor  withhold  it.  It  inheres  in  con- 
duct and  in  character,  is  not  gained  save  by  honest  endeavor,  nor 
lost  save  by  misconduct.  It  was  Washington's  in  the  successes 
of  Trenton  and  Princeton,  and  no  less  his  in  the  defeats  of  Brandy- 
wine  and  Germantown  ;  his  when  Gates  and  Conway,  Mifflin  and 
Samuel  Adams,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  would  have  deposed  him ; 
and  his,  no  less  and  no  more,  when  kings  and  princes  and  people 
in  remote  lands  and  later  ages  pronounced  him  greatest  among 
men.  No  —  nothing  is  so  honorable  as  honor  unjustly  withheld, 
no  praise  so  acclaiming  as  the  silence  of  lips  that  should  speak, 
no  victory  so  victorious  as  defeat  in  just  cause.  For  when  men 
were  silent  and  their  eyes  averted,  as  Josiah  Quincy  stepped  down 
from  the  Mayor's  chair  in  1829,  public  health  and  security  spake  ; 
and  so  did  beneficent  institutions ;  and  so  spake  the  New  Faneuil 
Hall  Market,  and  spacious  warehouses,  and  broad,  well-paved 
streets  ;  yea,  and  the  very  stones  of  those  streets,  and  the  virtuous 
poor  who  owed  to  him  comforts  before  denied,  and  youth  reclaimed 
from  vicious  ways,  and  just  men  and  women  looked  on  him  with 
kindly  eyes,  and  with  according  voices  proclaimed  honor  to  whom 
honor  unjustly  withheld  was  due  ;  and  he  has  taken  his  place 
among  those  dear  to  God,  who  serve  their  fellow-men  without 
expectation  of  reward. 

But  what  is  all  this  to  men  of  limited  capacities  and  common- 
place opportunities  —  to  us  members  of  the  Society  for  Promot- 
ing Good  Citizenship,  who  have  neither  high  aspirations  nor 
special  fitness  for  public  affairs  .■*  Rightly  considered,  it  is  every- 
thing ;  it  is  incitement,  endeavor,  success,  or  consolation.  I  have 
said  that  among  great  men  Mr.  Quincy  was  exceptionally  rare  in 
this :  that  his  character,  his  conduct,  and  his  services  are  imitable. 
There  is  no  one  in  this  audience,  however  low  in  fortune  or  social 
position,  none  however  high,  that  may  not  wisely  form  himself 
on  Josiah  Quincy's  character  and  imitate  his  conduct ;  and  if  we 
lack   his  opportunities,  at  least  we  may  remember  that  before  he 


22 


was  the  great  Mayor  he  was  the  great  Citizen  ;  and  before  he 
was  the  great  Citizen  he  was  a  good  citizen  —  as  any  one  of  us 
may  be ! 

His  political  ethics  were  simple,  easily  adopted,  and  of  uni- 
versal concern.  He  believed  in  the  duties  of  the  citizen  ;  that 
peril  to  the  republic  or  to  the  city  or  to  civilization  is  less  from  the 
/  intrusion  of  the  lower  classes  into  public  affairs  than  from  the 
withdrawal  of  the  wealthy,  educated,  and  refined  class ;  less  from 
the  spoliations  of  the  proletariat  than  from  the  indifference  of  the 
wealthy  and  educated  ;  and  he  regarded  as  less  obnoxious  to  just 
censure  him  who  takes  on  the  duties  of  the  citizen  for  private  ends 
than  one  who  abstains  for  merely  personal  convenience. 

I  do  not  think  Mr.  Quincy  found  all  his  work  congenial. 
That  such  a  man  —  a  man  who  understood  and  enjoyed  the  best 
of  the  world's  literature,  who  loved  agriculture  and  the  society  of 
refined  men  and  women  —  should  busy  himself,  forsooth,  with 
drains  and  cesspools  ;  with  back  yards  and  crowded  tenements ; 
with  criminals,  and  the  poor,  and  the  squalid,  and  the  sick.  This 
certainly  could  not  have  been  altogether  attractive  to  Mr.  Quincy, 
a  born  aristocrat,  who  could  run  his  lineage  back  to  the  rolls  of 
Battle  Abbey  without  encountering  the  gallows  or  losing  himself 
in  a  felon's  cell ;  a  man  who  made  no  profession  of  democracy ; 
who  would  have  weighed  votes  rather  than  have  counted  them  ; 
who  preferred  the  judgments  of  experts  to  the  unformed  opinions 
of  the  crowd ;  who  sought  the  society  of  gentlemen  rather  than 
that  of  'longshoremen.  Nevertheless,  where  he  was  called,  there 
he  was  to  be  found  ! 

Though  not  a  believer  in  the  democracy  of  party,  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  he  would  have  approved  of  recent  legislative 
acts  which  seem  to  regard  the  Great  and  General  Court,  rather 
than  the  people,  as  the  true  fountain  of  municipal  government 
under  the  constitution.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  contemplated,  as  a 
practical  relief  from  bad  government,  any  departure  from  that  faith 
on  which  our  political  system  rests  —  faith  in  the  ability  and  the  de- 
sire of  the  people  to  govern  themselves  wisely,  honestly,  efficiently. 

I  think  Mr.  Quincy  saw,  what  all  of  us  must  see,  that  the 
people,  acting  without  some  unifying  principle  and  purpose,  are  as 
the  sand  clouds  of   the  desert,  driven  blindly  and  blinding;  but 


23 

when,  as  in  the  late  civil  war,  they  are  animated  and  guided  by 
beneficent  purpose,  though  like  the  sea  sometimes  turbulent,  they 
are  wiser  even  in  their  anger  than  any  man  however  wise,  or  any 
number  of  men  less  than  the  whole. 

Nothing  concerns  the  people  so  much  as  government.  It  is 
the  test  of  public  morals,  as  the  regulation  of  life  is  the  test  of 
private  morals.  Deprecate  it  as  we  may,  quarrel  with  it  if  we  will, 
nevertheless  the  world's  judgment  of  us  as  a  people  by  the  prac- 
tical results  of  our  government,  whether  national,  state,  or  muni- 
cipal, is  fair,  and  from  that  judgment  there  is  no  appeal.  Mr. 
Quincy,  therefore,  made  it  a  constant  purpose  of  his  life  to  present 
good  government  to  the  people  as  the  highest  end  of  civil  society ; 
to  endue  them  with  a  unifying  sense  of  its  value,  and  to  inspire 
them  with  the  desire  and  determination  of  making  themselves  fit 
to  take  it  up,  carry  it  forward,  and  transmit  it  to  their  successors. 
He  would  spare  no  expense  to  educate  them  ;  would  withhold  no 
warning  voice  calling  them  to  duty  or  impressing  them  with  the 
conviction  that  expedients  must  be  temporary  and  in  the  long  run 
unsuccessful,  and  that,  after  all  makeshifts  have  failed,  none  but 
the  people  will,  or  can,  correct  what  is  wrong  or  secure  what  is 
desirable  in  their  government. 

Josiah  Quincy  was  not  of  the  people,  but  with  the  people  and 
for  the  people  —  always  !  If  he  never  indulged  in  the  illusions  of 
hope  respecting  the  perfectibility  of  popular  government,  he  never 
indulged  in  the  illusions  of  despair.  His  participation  in  govern- 
ment, as  a  private  citizen  or  as  a  public  officer,  was  part  of  his 
religion  ;  not  a  new  religion,  but  older  than  Sinai,  and  finding  one 
sanction,  at  least,  in  the  necessities  of  civilization.  It  needs  dis- 
ciples and,  it  may  be,  its  martyrs. 

Thus  lived  and  died  and  was  buried  the  first  citizen  of  no  mean 
city.  Some  of  his  fellow-citizens  equaled  him  in  genius,  some  in 
learning,  and  some  in  fidelity  to  duty ;  but  in  the  combination 
of  these  qualities  he  had  no  superior  and  few  equals.  Mr,  Quincy's 
death,  though  on  account  of  his  great  age  not  unexpected,  pro- 
duced deep  feeling  among  all  classes  of  his  fellow-citizens,  and  was 
followed  by  expressions  of  grief  from  every  part  of  the  country, 
and  even  from  foreign  lands.     When  he  died  a  conspicuous  per- 


24 

sonality  was  withdrawn  from  human  view  ;  but  his  life  and  char- 
acter and  influence  remain.  They  have  passed  into  the  life  of  the 
city  for  which  he  did  so  much ;  a  character  which,  as  it  becomes 
better  known,  may  we  not  hope,  will  be  accepted  as  the  type  for 
those  who  owe  it  to  their  ancestry  to  be  great  in  affairs,  capable  of 
self-government,  free,  patriotic,  and  beneficent  in  all  public  rela- 
tions. In  honorable  place  among  those  who  have  founded  cities, 
reformed  institutions,  and  served  God  by  unselfishly  serving  their 
fellow-men,  is  the  name  of  Josiah  Quincy,  "  the  Great  Mayor." 


\ 


If 
I 


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.   'X 


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t    .  I 


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i^^M 


